Farewell on earth; Heaven claim'd its own;
Yet, when from me thy presence went,
I was exchanged for God alone:

Let dust and ashes learn content.

Ha! those small voices silver-sweet
Fresh from the fields my babes appear;
They fill my arms, they clasp my feet;
"Oh! could your father see us here!"

166

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

THE LYRE.

"Ah! who would love the lyre!"

W. B. STEVENS.

WHERE the roving rill meander'd
Down the green retiring vale,
Poor, forlorn ALCEUS wander'd,
Pale with thought, serenely pale:
Timeless sorrow o'er his face
Breathed a melancholy grace,
And fix'd on every feature there
The mournful resignation of despair.

O'er his arm, his lyre neglected,
Once his dear companion, hung,
And, in spirit deep dejected,

Thus the pensive poet sung;
While at midnight's solemn noon,
Sweetly shone the cloudless moon,
And all the stars, around his head,

Benignly bright, their mildest influence sned.

66

"Lyre! O Lyre! my chosen treasure,

Solace of my bleeding heart;

Lyre! O Lyre! my only pleasure
We must now for ever part;

For in vain thy poet sings,

Wooes in vain thine heavenly strings;

The Muse's wretched sons are born
To cold neglect, and penury, and scorn.

"That which ALEXANDER Sigh'd for,
That which CESAR's soul possess'd,
That which heroes, kings, have died for-
Glory!-animates my breast:
Hark! the charging trumpets' throats
Pour their death-defying notes;
To arms!' they call: to arms I fly,

Like WOLFE to conquer, and like WOLFE to die.

"Soft!-the blood of murder'd legions

Summons vengeance from the skies;
Flaming towns and ravaged regions,
All in awful judgment rise.-
O then, innocently brave,

I will wrestle with the wave;

Lo! Commerce spreads the daring sail,
And yokes her naval chariots to the gale.

"Blow, ye breezes !-gently blowing,
Waft me to that happy shore,
Where, from fountains ever flowing,
Indian realms their treasures pour;
Thence returning, poor in health,
Rich in honesty and wealth,
O'er thee, my dear paternal soil,
I'll strew the golden harvest of my toil.

"Then shall Misery's sons and daughters
In their lowly dwellings sing:
Bounteous as the Nile's dark waters,
Undiscover'd as their spring,

I will scatter o'er the land
Blessings with a secret hand;
For such angelic tasks design'd,

I give the lyre and sorrow to the wind."

On an oak, whose branches hoary
Sigh'd to every passing breeze,
Sigh'd and told the simple story
Of the patriarch of trees;

REMONSTRANCE TO WINTER.

AH! why, unfeeeling WINTER, Why
Still flags thy torpid wing?
Fly, melancholy Season, fly,
And yield the year to SPRING.

Spring, the young harbinger of love,
An exile in disgrace,-

Flits o'er the scene, like NOAH's dove
Nor finds a resting place.

When on the mountain's azure peak
Alights her fairy form,

Cold blow the winds,-and dark and bleak

Around her rolls the storm.

If to the valley she repair

For shelter and defence,

Thy wrath pursues the mourner there,
And drives her, weeping, thence.

She seeks the brook, the faithless brook,
Of her unmindful grown,

Feels the chill magic of thy look,
And lingers into stone.

She wooes her embryo-flowers in vain
To rear their infant heads;-
Deaf to her voice, her flowers remain
Enchanted in their beds.

In vain she bids the trees expand
Their green luxuriant charms ;-
Bare in the wilderness they stand,
And stretch their withering arms.

Her favourite birds, in feeble notes,
Lament thy long delay;

And strain their little stammering throats